Muppet Chess Set Problem

[Animal Jam alsk]

Does anyone else have the Muppet Chess Set?

I was very excited about this set and overall am pleased with how the pieces look. However, the Rizzo (Pawn) Character seems very poorly made and some of them will hardly even stand up without falling over. The way the base of each piece is made they just fall over even on a sturdy level surface. The other pieces seem well balanced. It’s a shame that the piece that is used the most was so inappropriately made.

Of course one Rizzo falling over easily knocks over all the other Rizzo-Pawns in a dominoes like effect.

Does anyone else have this problem? Has anyone found a good solution?

Thanks,

-Scott

 

[Kermie Lover]

Disappointing Chess Set

I totally agree with you about the lameness of this chess set. My parents gave me the same one for Christmas. I liked most of the pieces too, but I wish they could've made Kermit a little more attractive, and I love Rizzo, but did they really have to make every pawn a Rizzo?! They could've had made one Rizzo as a pawn, and the rest of the pawns could've been Rizzo's other rat buddies, or some lesser known Muppets. Another big draw back you didn't mention was the extremly ugly chess board , it's probably made from the cheapest cardboard you can get, and it folds up into this cruddy three fold shape, and there's a gaping whole down the middle! As far as the clumsy Rizzo's go, I recommend that you do just like I'm going to do- buy a nicer chessboard for the set and put it on display- all of the pieces are so clunky- I would never even attempt to play chess with it, but if you insit on playing with it, I guess you could go to Staples and and put a little bit of sticky tack on the Rizzo's to help steady them while you play.

 

[GonzoGirl]

Sounds alot like the Harry Potter chess set I got for xmas. Its got a cheesy, cheap, foldable cardboard gameboard like that. The pieces are cool, but they're pretty lightweight, and fall over easily, especially if the board isn't totally flat, which isn't an easy feat to accomplish. It would be nice if the companies could just take a bit more time with these specialty chess sets and make them more collectible and user friendly-or atleast display friendly!

 

[Klonoa]

...which is why I prefer checkers.

--Klonoa

 

[GonzoGirl]

...which is why I prefer checkers.

--Klonoa

LOL...very wise!

 

[rexcrk]

Well, at least in comes in a nice tin!

 

[Zack the Dog]

Gee that's sad, did you guys know this is a rerelease of the Muppet chess board, not sure when it came out, 1999 i think, i bought mine from 2momluvme.com in 2001 but they don't have anymore now. The origanal set had a nicer board and all the peices would stand well, it didn't come in a nice tin but the quality of the game it's self is very nice. too bad they went cheeper with this new set.

 

[Animal Jam alsk]

Chess Set blah

The version I got was in the TIN and has the very basic looking board and looks like:

http://www.muppetcentral.com/collectibles/muppetpics/game_chess_euro.jpg

Did the new one (2000) edition have better pieces or just a better board.

I bought a nice wooden board that is very flat and again the Rizzo pieces still
barely stand up. What's worse is that just looking at them you can tell that some are just fine.. and others are leaning over and overall the consistancy is just not good. Poor Quality Control. It would have been nice if perhaps they made them bendable so that you could adjust all the pieces.

Perhaps trying to us some sort of magnet system if would work? Any thoughts on this?

Scott

 

[GonzoGirl]

Are the Muppet pieces hollow on the under side? Because the ones on the Harry Potter set are, and my dad suggested possibly filling them with a bit of plaster or epoxy to give them more weight, and balance. That might work...although the magnet system idea is a good one too, but it might get really involved and frustrating.

 

[Animal Jam alsk]

hollow

Not sure if they are hollow. They are made from a soft-plastic/rubber material that makes them slightly bendable - though they do not actually bend and take on the new shape.

Putting on thing "coin-line" metal weights might work if attacked to the bottom properly. It'd have to be quite small/thin yet also heavy. The guy at the "store" suggested using fishing lure weights or something like that, but he wasn't very specific about it.

The magnet idea I think would work if one could find a good magnetic board (big enough to hold them).

-Scott